Notes: There was a Belmont Abbey College connection to Monday’s game, as former Crusaders basketball coach and athletic director Kevin Eastman was on the Celtics’ bench as an assistant. Eastman guided the Abbey to its second NAIA District 26 title in 1988 and former Crusaders’ assistant Franklin Lowery and former player Patrick Easterling were among those in attendance Monday, in addition to former Abbey player Brett Walters, who was in Eastman’s last recruiting class….

Boston backup point guard Leandro Barbosa was assisted from the court after suffering what appeared to be a serious left knee injury in the third quarter….

CHARLOTTE – Seven was the lucky number for the Charlotte Bobcats Monday night in a surprising 94-91 victory over the Boston Celtics.

Playing in front of a vocal crowd of 15,709 at Time Warner Cable Arena, the Bobcats turned the tables on their recent fortunes in a couple of ways.

For starters, they were the team making the late comeback, by scoring the final seven points of the game. Also, Charlotte (12-39) won for the first time after seven straight losses. Finally, the loss snapped Boston’s (27-24) seven-game winning streak that began after they found out they’d lost All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo for the season due to a knee injury.

“At some point in time, we’ll have a threshold game,” said first-year coach Mike Dunlap, whose team had lost seven games by 10 or less points in the last month. “I hope this is it. But it’s a long season.”

It could be argued the Celtics were simply worn down, having won in triple overtime the night before over Denver.

No matter to the Bobcats, who were simply looking to win however they could in a season that started 7-5 but had been 4-34 since until Monday night.

“You kinda assumed that they were going to be tired,” Bobcats forward Gerald Henderson said of the Celtics. “But they’re a veteran team and you knew they’d play tough.”

Boston did, even controlling the lead much of the contest.

But Charlotte, behind the efforts of Henderson (16 points), Byron Mullens (25 points, career-high 18 rebounds), Ramon Session (19 points) and Kemba Walker (18 points, six rebounds, six assists), forged ahead for the first time since 16-14 at 49-48 with 10:37 left in the third quarter.

The Bobcats even built a five-point lead three times, the last at 77-72, before Boston began rallying like so many Charlotte opponents have done this season; The Bobcats have blown six double-digit leads, including two of 20 or more.

With that in mind, Charlotte got incredible returns on both offense and defense down the stretch.

Trailing 91-87 with 2:15 to play after Kevin Garnett’s 15-foot turnaround fadeaway, the Bobcats scored the game’s final seven points and got stops on five straight Celtics’ possessions to end the game.

The youthful core of the team – Mullens, Henderson, Walker, Sessions and Bismack Biyombo – was in the game as it wound to a close.

“It’s been difficult for the team,” Dunlap said, “because we’ve given the younger players a lot of minutes. It’s been tough for the veterans. You try to find a balance.

“And, as you shepherd it along, you lose a lot of close games. And that’s on me, not the team.”

Notes: There was a Belmont Abbey College connection to Monday’s game, as former Crusaders basketball coach and athletic director Kevin Eastman was on the Celtics’ bench as an assistant. Eastman guided the Abbey to its second NAIA District 26 title in 1988 and former Crusaders’ assistant Franklin Lowery and former player Patrick Easterling were among those in attendance Monday, in addition to former Abbey player Brett Walters, who was in Eastman’s last recruiting class….

Boston backup point guard Leandro Barbosa was assisted from the court after suffering what appeared to be a serious left knee injury in the third quarter….

The Bobcats were 23rd in the NBA in home attendance entering Monday’s game with an average of 15,542 through 25 games. The average would fifth in the team’s nine-year history….

The Bobcats visit Indiana Wednesday at 7 p.m. before taking their All-Star break. The next home game is Feb. 20 against Detroit….

During the break, the Kemba Walker and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist will make the team’s seventh and eighth All-Star game appearances as members of Friday’s Rookie Challenge Game in Houston. Walker will join Emeka Okafor as the only two-time participant, as Walker played for the rookie team in last year’s All-Star festivities.